Social Works?: Live 2019
Social Works?: Live was a one-day celebration of socially engaged art, attended by over 130 artists, producers, commissioners, academics, and participants.
Postcards hanging on a washing line at Social Works? Live. Photo credit: Jules Lister.
Hosted in partnership between Axis and Manchester Metropolitan University as part of the Models of Validation project. The event was about working in the open and sharing ideas with a network of people involved in socially engaged practice.
Connected by critical engagement as an essential part of the field, it explored the infrastructural conditions needed to give those involved in the sector the means to enter into valuable and validating exchanges.
Twelve commissioned artists took part as “stallholders” in a fair-with-a-difference. Each was invited to host or facilitate an activity or intervention within the space, interpreting the idea of a stall in their own way.
Alongside the stallholder programme, the day included the Commissioner Hot Seat, fringe interventions, a live link with New York-based artist Jody Wood, and a bursary scheme that awarded 16 bursaries to self-employed and low-income artists to support attendance and participation.
Watch the film
A short film capturing Social Works?: Live — the people, projects, and conversations that shaped the day.
Rules of Engagement
- Respect and value each other’s ideas, styles, and viewpoints
- Be honest but professional
- Be inclusive
- Be open to learning
- Lead by example
Thematic Spaces
- Exchange – Learning and sharing best practice
- Profile – Celebrating artists and their projects
- Resources – Gathering tools, ideas, and references for social practice
- Fringe – Spontaneous, social, and playful interventions
Stallholder Artists
Eva He
Eva presented the receipt printer chatroom analog, ‘LOOO’ a computer keyboard of limited word-keys connected to a thermal printer that instantly prints out user-generated messages, which offer commentary on the current chaos of the socio-political climate.
gobscure
gobscure came in the guise of mary wollstonecraft, the feminist, internationalist and pamphleteer who was written off 200 years ago as a hyena in petticoats for being mad, bad, rad and bi! Participants were invited to sketch a map depicting a personal journey onto mary’s petticoat.
You can watch our film to find out more about gobscure’s work
Harald Smykla
Harald presented the temporary bureau for C.R.E.H.A (Centre for Research into Emotional Hygiene through Art), a performative research project investigating the emotional impact of art. Participants will be invited to recreate and process their memories of significant, emotionally charged art experiences in any kind in order to answer the question—can art move you?
You can find out more about Harald’s work here:
http://www.creativebd.org.uk/artist-commissions/harald-smykla/
Jaron Hill
Jaron collected ideas and submissions for the second issue of HERM, the zine for a queer arts collective based between West Yorkshire and London. The aim of Jaron’s stall was to interrogate and deconstruct the notion that London represents the creative epicentre for the UK, by providing space for creative and open discussion that validates and empowers people from diverse backgrounds, including those who do not identify as artists or designers.
You can see more of Jaron’s work as one half of Jessen-Hill here:
Lady Kitt and Louise Brown
Kitt and Lou provided a drop-in service, the Social Practice First Aid Kit, with ‘prescriptions’ and resources (physical, digital, imagined, emotional) for social arts practitioners.
You can find out more about the Social Practice First Aid Kit and other work by Lady Kitt here:
Mark Prest
Mark Prest—founder of Portraits of Recovery—presented ‘PhotoLoo’, asking how art might be useful to explore our feelings and our conflicted selves. Mark guided participants in making self-portraits using a set of instructions to explore feelings and internal conflicts – and the resulting polaroids formed a temporary gallery that visually articulates a better collective identity fit.
You can find out more about Mark’s work with Portraits of Recovery here:
Rosalie Schweiker
Rosalie sold and traded copies of the book, Teaching For People Who Prefer Not To Teach, which she edited together with Mirjam Bayerdoerfer and co-designed with Margherita Huntley. Visitors to Rosalie’s stall were invited to try out some of the exercises in the book.
You can find out more about Rosalie’s practice here:
Sharon Bennett and Sarah Dixon
Sharon and Sarah presented the Bureau for the Validation of Art in which attendees at Social Works?: Live were given the opportunity to submit their work for Validation. Using a series of pre-set questionnaires, the Bureau’s officials came to a decision as to whether the art presented was valid as art, providing an official stamp and docket recording the outcome.
To find out more about Sharon and Sarah and the Women’s Art Activation System:
Social Art Network
Fresh from their success at Tate Exchange the previous day, Social Art Network provided a space to discuss the development of resources for social arts practitioners.
Leslie Thompson
Leslie, a regular artist at Venture Arts studios, documented and depicted proceedings at Social Works?: Live through live observational drawings.
You can see more of Leslie’s work here:
Rabab Ghazoul
Rabab, an artist and director of the Cardiff-based grassroots organisation Gentle/Radical, documented reflections, critical musings and provocations from Social Works?: Live—in the form of a live publication. Her summational talk invited participants to think about how our readings of power might inform our social practice work; personally, politically and institutionally.
You can find out more about Rabab’s work here:
Jody Wood
US-based artist and social practitioner joining live from New York for conversation and exchange.
Artist Jody Wood discusses her work for Axis Social Works: Live 2019
The Fringe
Additional creative interventions came from Amelia Baron, Sally Lemsford, Katy and Rebecca Beinart, and Alana Jellinek.
Commissioner Hot Seat
The Commissioner Hot Seat was an open roundtable where artists could ask commissioners direct questions about commissioning practice, challenges, and opportunities in socially engaged art.
Participants:
- Scott Burrell – Head of Programme, Create London, a charity connecting artists with communities in east London through ambitious projects rooted in everyday life
- Beth Emily Richards – Artist and Producer, Take A Part, Plymouth, delivering socially engaged contemporary art in communities experiencing socio-economic deprivation and regeneration
- Paul Hartley – Founding Director, In-Situ, embedding art into everyday life and challenging thinking about environment, people, place, and culture
These discussions encouraged respectful, inclusive dialogue, guided by the event’s Rules of Engagement.
Legacy
Social Works?: Live continues to inform Axis’ work supporting artists, championing open, collaborative approaches and documenting the diversity of practice across the UK
“I didn’t know what to expect but I went with it and got lost in lots of interesting and varied actions and discussions. A great mix!”
Social Works? Live participant
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Connected Activities
An Innovate UK-funded partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University that transformed Axis into a self-sustaining, research-led organisation and established new artist-centred systems of validation.
Social Works?:Open is an artist-led journal for and about social practice art in the UK and beyond.
Commissioned by Axis in 2015, Validation Beyond the Gallery explored how artists working outside traditional gallery systems gain recognition for their practice. The research became a catalyst for rethinking how Axis supports and values artists, marking a shift toward an artist-first approach that continues to guide the organisation today.
Helping Artists Keep Going
Axis is an artist-led charity supporting contemporary visual artists with resources, connection, and visibility.